Image displaying apparatus

• US 20020054047A1
• Filed: 11/05/2001
• Published: 05/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Minolta Corporation Limited (Konica Minolta Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Minolta Corporation Limited (Konica Minolta Inc.)
• Inventors: Toyama, Osamu, Tanaka, Yuzuru, Fujii, Eiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,015,934 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/629
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q

Abstract

The present invention aims at realizing displaying of a realistic image of a conversation scene in which a speaker can be visually recognized by people watching this image regardless of the content of the image. To this end, according to the present invention, a two-dimensional or three-dimensional face model is deformed, and animations A1_i through A3_i which express a state in which a person is speaking are consequently created and displayed as auxiliary images.

Claims

1. An image displaying apparatus comprising:

a first displaying portion at which a main image is displayed;

a voice information obtainer for obtaining voice information;

a image creator for creating an animated face image which expresses appearances of speech by a person by means of deforming two-dimensional face model or three-dimensional face model in accordance with the obtained voice information;

a second displaying portion at which the animated face image created by the creating the image creator is displayed as an auxiliary image, wherein the second displaying portion is predetermined portion no relating to contents of the main image.

2. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a unit including the first displaying portion and a unit including the second displaying portion are different units.

3. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first displaying portion and the second displaying portion are included in a unit.

4. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the animated face image expresses a full-face pose.

5. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional face model or the three-dimensional face model corresponds to a person represented in the main image.

6. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 5, wherein a plurality of the two-dimensional face model or the three-dimensional face model differing from each other is prepared in a case that the main image includes a plurality of persons.

7. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 6, wherein

the animated image displayed at the second displaying portion is an image of who are speaking.

8. An image displaying apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising a determiner for determining whether a direction of a person represented in the main image is full-face pose or not, wherein second displaying portion displays an animated face image of a person which direction is determined as a not full-face pose by the determiner.

9. An image creating system comprising:

an image acquiring portion for acquiring image signals for representing real images;

a voice acquiring portion for acquiring voice signals for representing voice accompanying the real image;

a model storing memory for storing a plurality of models;

a specifying processor for specifying a model from the plurality of models stored in the model storing portion on the basis of the acquired voice signals;

a memory controller for read out the specified model from the storing portion;

an auxiliary image creating processor for creating an animated image by deforming the read out model; and

a display for displaying the animated image created by the auxiliary image creating processor.

10. An image creating system according to claim 9, further comprising a voice feature storing memory for storing a plurality of voice features respectively corresponding to the plurality of models, wherein the specifying processor refers the voice features to specify a model.

11. An image creating system according to claim 9, wherein the voice signals includes voice data and data for specifying a speaker, and the specifying portion refers the data for specifying a speaker to specify a model corresponding to the voice data.

12. An image creating system according to claim 11, wherein the data for specifying a speaker is obtained from an apparatus for creating the real image.

13. An image creating system according to claim 11, wherein the voice signal is comprised of multiplex channel, and the data for specifying a speaker is the channel of the multiplex channel.

14. An image creating system according to claim 9, wherein the display portion displays the animated image over the real image, and a location of the displayed animated image has no relation to contents of the real image.

16. An image displaying system according to claim 15, wherein the frame with which the animated full-face pose image is predetermined for every person.

17. An image displaying system according to claim 15, wherein the display controller controls the auxiliary image displaying portion to display only the animated full-face pose image determined by the determining portion in a predetermined frame among the plurality of frames, and a main image and/or other images are displayed on the frame as which the animated full-face pose image is not displayed.

15. An image displaying system for displaying a plurality of persons, the system comprising:

a main image displaying portion for displaying a main image which represents positional relationship of a plurality of persons;

a speaker for producing sounds which represents voice of the plurality of persons;

an auxiliary image displaying portion which has a plurality of frames each of which displays an animated full-face pose image of a person;

a determining processor for determining from which person of the plurality of the persons a voice is produced, on the basis of the voice to be represented by the speaker;

a creating processor for creating an animated full-face pose image of a person being determined by the determining processor; and

a display controller for controlling the auxiliary image displaying portion to display the created animated full-face pose image within one of the frame of the plurality of frames.